2018 Chesebro, La Montagne Sauvage Rouge, CM Ranch Estate Vineyard, Carmel Valley AVA, Monterey County.
The incredible dark fruited and powerful 2018 Chesebro La Montagne Sauvage red blend, Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre, is an old school mountain wine with serious presence and grip in the glass with black raspberry, damson plum, currant and brambly mulberry fruits, along with briar, crushed violet, loamy black olive, cigar wrapper, sage and old cedar accents. This medium/full bodied is still remarkably fresh, wound tight and taut, much more old world in style than a modern California wine, such is the skin to juice ratio and the natural climate here, I was blown away, especially with the length of the finish, which seemed to be held in suspended animation with the long firm tannin. Winemaker and vigneron Mark Chesebro employed nothing fancy, just old fashioned, traditional methods to produce this outstanding wine, preferring to showcase the raw nature of the place, the vintage and the grapes, and the results speak for them selves. These rocky hillsides and ancient seabed soils that are sun kissed durning the long Summer days also get chilly nights, from the Pacific Ocean, making for thick skins, less fruity ripeness, and good acidity, which gives these wines an austerity, chewy tannin and a bright core of energy. This wine, which was, again, shown to me by Will Chesebro, Mark’s son, who says this will be released soon and I highly recommend chasing some bottles down and be sure to decant and have with a hearty meal, I would guess it has another 10 to 15 years of excitement to give.
This special late release mountain wine from Chesebro, the La Montagne Sauvage red, is made from a tiny hillside parcel at their CM Ranch in Carmel Valley and is comprised of about 66% Syrah, 30% Grenache and 4% Mourvèdre grapes that are 100% de-stemmed and crushed with care, as tannin management is an important issue with the intensity of this unique site. Extended barrel aging and bottle aging is a necessity for this Rhône blend, it typically sees close to 24 months in mainly used French oak and a few Gamba Italian barrels, that the Chesebro family fee suits this powerful wine, after which it rests in bottle for another 4 years. Mark Chesebro, the ex Bernardus winemaker, who started his own label back in about 2005 around his small Carmel Valley estate, which has a collection of Rhône varietals and the Cedar Lane Vineyard in Arroyo Seco that has an interesting mix of grapes, including Albariño, Vermentino, Pinot Noir and most famously musque clone Sauvignon Blanc. The Chesebro wines are honest workman like offerings that are authentic, as mentioned raw and pure, with the whites mostly being clean stainless steel raised and the reds aged exclusively in well used barrels. Chesebro, along with his sons, does a series of value priced wines including Syrah, Grenache, Roussanne, Gamay, Albariño, Pinot Noir, the Musque clone Sauvignon Blanc, Vermentino and a set of white and red Rhône blends, all coming from mostly estate grown fruit from, as noted, Cedar Lane (which has a new artist label) along with their partner’s Mission Ranch Vineyard, and the home vines at the CM Ranch in Carmel Valley. This small lot, handcrafted wines are definitely worth checking out, mostly sold through their tasting room in the Carmel Valley Village.
($45 Est.) 94 Points, grapelive